


He Wears Her Bruises Like Jewelry

by Hello_Spikey



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Bruises, F/M, Shaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2019-10-30 01:12:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17818985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Spikey/pseuds/Hello_Spikey
Summary: Buffy hurts a little less every day.





	He Wears Her Bruises Like Jewelry

**Author's Note:**

> I saw there was a 'bruises' prompt and it wandered into this. Hope it's okay.

Every day, life hurts a little less. Every day, she needs him a little less.

And oh, how she had needed him. Like a drowning person needs mouth-to-mouth. She fed on his love for the thrill of it, for the heat of it, for the life in it. She’d been the vampire, staving off the deadness inside with borrowed passion. He’d been an endless font.

She hadn’t even seen him, then. He’d been a means to an end. But now, she hurts less, and she has time to see. She sees him smirk with one swollen eye like he doesn’t even know it’s there. Does he? He has no reflection, but he must feel it.

He wears her bruises like jewelry. Bracelets. Eye shadow. He mocks her ability to hurt him because she can’t hurt him. She tries and tries and it isn’t even pleasure anymore it’s demanding that he grow sick of her and leave her because she doesn’t deserve his worship. But she can’t hurt him. Only his love can.

She expected him to leave, after the alley. After he stopped fighting back. That was a sign, wasn’t it? He should have left. She wanted him to leave. Didn’t she?

She sees him clearly now, and she sees herself. Sees need turning into want. He was a crutch but now he’s a vice. Like those people who get hooked on pain killers, she’s taken too much and can never get enough.

He drags a razor up his jawline and dips it in the ceramic bowl, shaking suds off before he repeats the gesture on the other side. A soap bubble travels down his bare back, from unmarred skin to a purpling bruise. “What’s going on behind that far-off look?” he asks, half-smiling at her over his shoulder.

“How often do you shave?” Buffy asks, as the question pops into her mind.

He looks disgusted that she asked. “Every day, like any man not a Neanderthal.” He tilts his head back. She can hear the scrape of skin.

It’s that he doesn’t have a mirror. Doesn’t need one. It’s a silent expression of all the years of practice he’s had at this. “I didn’t think vampires needed to shave,” she said.

He shrugs. “Doesn’t hurt. Whiskers do come in slow, when I end up unable to make my ablutions.” He pulls the towel off his shoulder and wipes his face. He turns to the bed and his expression is predatory. He crawls toward her. “Like to be presentable for my lady.”

She stops him with a foot on his chest. He picks it up, thumb against her instep. He kisses the pads of her toes. Her nails are bright pink and the bruise on his cheek is turning brown. He turns his cheek into her foot, pressing the bruise against her and she thinks he must know it is there. He felt it under his razor and he feels it now. He pushes into the pain. He always has.

And he licks, and her brain short-circuits a little because it tickles and it is wonderful and horrible and she kicks but he’s caught her and he’s laughing against her thigh and he smells clean and soapy and she still smells of sleep and sex.

And she doesn’t need this, but she wants it. And it’s so easy to struggle just enough to let him win gracefully. But then there he is, and there’s the inevitable still moment when they see each other, eyes and minds and scars and everything, and he looks so unbelievably grateful as she sinks her fingers into already damaged flesh.

Every day, life hurts a little less, and hurting him hurts a little more.


End file.
